In Othello and Oedipus we see characters that are vain and incapable of coming to peace with the truth that their lives have reached because the truth is deeply tragic. Both feel compelled to punish themselves. The manner of punishment that they inflict on themselves is different. This difference is revealing of the personalities of the two characters. When we compare literary characters, many considerations must be taken into account. What the plot of the story is; where does the character figure among other characters in the plot; and what the personality traits of the characters are, are few questions that are addressed. The era to which the literary work belongs can also be accounted. The purpose is to isolate the characters from the narratives and place them in the forefront and letting everything else recede into the background. When we look at the characters of Othello and Oedipus the king under this light, we find that both are tragic heroes and both suffer from a heightened vanity. The expressions of vanity in their characters are different, and a closer look will reveal the similarities and differences between Othello and Oedipus better.
The story of Oedipus Rex is remarkably more dramatic. The play is quite severely controlled by the author. Fate plays an important role. Oedipus is in opposition to his fate and is boastful, "But I came, / Oedipus, who knew nothing, and I stopped her. / I solved the riddle by my wit alone" (Sophocles, 433-35). Oedipus is remarkably heroic throughout the play, banishing himself from his homeland Corinth, so he does not kill his father and later saving Thebes from the menace of the Sphinx. In the narrative of the play, even though a morose character Oedipus achieves much and contrary to Othello in the pangs of jealousy for a prolonged period Oedipus leads a fulfilled life. He reacts to the blind prophet Tiresias when he accuses Oedipus to be the killer of the king in vanity, but somewhere Oedipus’s tragedy is not his making but his destiny. The murder of the king he commits is indeed an act of vanity, but that too is more closely linked to the fate of Oedipus.
The tragic hero here does not suffer till the truth is revealed. Oedipus is vain that he does not pay heed to the warnings of the Oracles and continues his life in a rather reckless manner. “Now my curse on the murderer. Whoever he is,/a lone man unknown in his crime/or one among many, let that man drag out/his life in agony, step by painful step“ (Sophocles, 280-283). In due course of the play, he marries the wife of the king he defeated, and thereafter the truth that the woman he has married is his mother, is revealed. Oedipus is a man of honour, and this revelation wrecks his sense of self. On the revelation of the truth, Oedipus blinds himself in both eyes and exiles himself from the kingdom and all human civilization. At this point, we can see a glaring difference between Oedipus and Othello. On the revelation of the truth, Othello kills himself. Prior to the revelation of the truth, Othello goes through hell like suffering of jealousy. “I had rather be a toad/And live upon the vapor of a dungeon/Than keep a corner in the thing I love/For others’ uses” (Shakespeare, 3.3.274-277). In contrast, Oedipus does not kill himself. He does not relieve himself from suffering by killing himself. Instead, he inflicts double suffering on himself – he blinds himself and excommunicates himself from all of human civilization. The tragic fate of the two characters is different, and the origin of this difference in their lives resides in the cultural origins of the two characters. Looking at the context of the two literatures here – ancient Greek and Renaissance – will be helpful to decipher the differences between Othello and Oedipus better.
In the world of Greek literature, the world outside of the Greek civilization does not exist. Everything is contained within the Greek civilization. Thus, narratorial punishment for Oedipus comes from rupturing one of the fundamental aspects of civilization – the mother-son relationship. The world of Renaissance literature, on the other hand, is one in which the outer world very much exists, and the outer world of colonial explorations is inferior to the world of renaissance high culture. The assumed cultural superiority finds expression in the character of Othello. Despite his bravery and accomplishments, he constantly feels like an outsider to the renaissance culture. He is a Moor, an African. The colour of his skin is different from those he lives among. Individuals from his race are at best servants and slaves. And he has gone so far as to court and marry a woman far superior to his status.
Thus, we see that the torments of Othello and Oedipus are different in that they belong to different cultural settings even if the tragic flaws in their personalities is the same – vanity. Other differences also exist. Oedipus is the single most important character in the play Oedipus Rex and all other characters are but very small in front of him. Othello’s stature is not as tall against characters like Iago and Desdemona. Much of Othello’s sense of being comes from Iago and Desdemona. Iago hurts and boosts his sense of masculinity and chivalry while Desdemona keeps the tender parts of his heart to herself. "My name, that was as fresh / As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black" (Shakespeare, 3.3.383-84) expresses the dependence of his sense of self on Desdemona. Oedipus, on the other hand, is very much a creation of his sense of self-reliance and honour. The dramatic nature of the two plays is also crucial in expressing the characters of Oedipus and Othello. While Oedipus’s story has tragic and powerful intervention from the divine Othello’s story has the vengeful intervention of Iago into the fragile psyche of the Moor.Tiresias in the later part of Oedipus Rex says, “No man will ever/ be rooted from the earth as brutally as you” (Sophocles, 488-489).The women in the two plays are also remarkably different. Jocasta is almost a mute character and silently marries the new king. Other women in the play are the oracles in the temple of Apollo, and their function is merely to inform people about prophesies. Women characters are developed with greater efforts too. in the play Othello. Desdemona is sensitive and refined with an imagination of romance and Emilia is a strong female character who willingly goes against her husband for the cause of justice. Othello, both as a play and a character, are deeply rooted in the human psyche, and the fragility of vanity is attended to by Shakespeare better than the treatment of vanity by Sophocles. "I took by the throat the circumcised dog / And smote him-thus" (Shakespeare, 5.2.351-52), says Othello, killing himself, disgusted with himself. Oedipus stays strong even after the abrupt rupture of his sense of honour and vanity at the hands of fate and does not kill himself. In Oedipus’s strength, we observe the flaw of vanity less than we observe it in the jealousy of Othello.
References:
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, Dower Thrift Edition, 1991.
Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice, W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.
